Genesis 4:17-24 . The Line of Cain.
The following account was probably originally a second covenant record. It is built around the covenant recognised between Lamech and Yahweh, but in view of its reference back to Yahweh's covenant with Cain it may well have been conjoined with the previous record immediately. It is, however interesting to note that neither God nor Yahweh is directly mentioned in this section.
‘And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch (Chanokh), and he established an encampment, and called the name of the encampment after his son Enoch.'
All this would take a process of time. First he obtains for himself a wife, one of the daughters of Adam. Did he kidnap her, or did the aura of mystery that surrounded him make her willing to leave everything to be with him? As a result of this he has a son, Chanokh, meaning ‘dedication' or ‘beginning'. He sees this as a new beginning which he dedicates, presumably to Yahweh, or at least to ‘God'. Then he establishes his encampment, which he names after his son Enoch.
The word ‘city' can later refer either to an encampment of tents or to a regular city (Numbers 13:19 and see Genesis 4:20 below) or probably also a group of caves. It refers to people gathered together in some form of organised society. This may indicate that others who have offended against the family, or who were particularly adventurous and envied his life of wandering, may have joined him, or it may be that his setting up of some kind of shelter is seen as the first beginnings of what grows into a larger encampment, thus ‘he built a city' means ‘he established what would become a large encampment'.